Desperate to force since they cannot persuade, Microsoft has announced that DirectX 11.1 (and therefore presumably all following versions) will be exclusive to Windows 8.

Remember back when having support for x number of years meant something? When you'd see no less than 6 service packs to your current version of NT, and when critical system components like DirectX were simultaneously released for 3+ different versions of Windows (everything from 98 to XP)?

Basically, that means that PC game developers will need to ignore DX11.1 and any future version unless they're happy with a potential market share restricted to a couple hipster weirdos with Surface tablets.

Kinda happens with any commercial software. If they let you use the old software for multiple years and release free patches to it, they get less money. If they release new versions about every year, and stop supporting the old versions, they get more money. At least if people are willing to buy the new versions.

Too often it seems like new software adds some couple new cool features, and then for some strange reason remove a bunch of cool/useful old features and introduce a wide variety of new stupid bugs, which aren't ever going to be fixed, at least not with any free service packs/patches. You'll have to wait for the next, next version and buy it, or have to go back to some really old version, which might not work anymore, because the hardware is different, and the operating system is different as well!

Also everything seems to get rounder... well, sometimes it's ok to have a sharp edge! It's not like I'm going to poke my eye in them! I still use the grey old rectangular "boring" look with my Windows. First thing I do when I've just installed Windows, is to change to that look.

Makes you wonder how they think at Microsoft. Here we have an OS from them. Windows 7 that people generally seem to really like. So they decide to make a new one to compete with it where they remove some key functionality, seemingly just to fuck with their users.

As if anything released after DX9 managed to become relevant to game development. DX9 is still king, through continuous updates spanning nearly a decade, almost like Windows XP.

Can you think of any exclusive e.g. DX 10/11 titles that you ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY can't enjoy unless you have Windows Vista/7? Or any developers that would take that gamble because they simply cannot live without DX10 features? The broken deliberately-locked Vista-only version of Halo doesn't count ;-)

kristus said:Makes you wonder how they think at Microsoft. Here we have an OS from them. Windows 7 that people generally seem to really like. So they decide to make a new one to compete with it where they remove some key functionality, seemingly just to fuck with their users.

Maybe they don't want another Windows XP-like situation to develop, with a 10 year old-OS still clinging to a solid 30% of the market.

Their previous OSes (95/98/Me) were simply too flimsy and buggy to continue being used that long, but with XP they reached a "critical mass" that made long-term support viable. Only that long-term support and new OS sales don't go along very well.

The only way out is to artificially "kill" their own OSes, something which in the past happened automatically thanks to their infamous bugginess. Of course, sometimes the result can be FORCED and PAINFUL e.g. Vista. Touted as the ultimate "XP killer", forced down everybody's throat, it ended up being superseded by XP's SP3, and quickly patched up in order to become Windows 7...which ALSO is perhaps TOO good for its own, well, good.

My mother asked me last week what I knew or thought about Windows 8. All I replied was "No". And after this that's all I'll say to anyone who asks that or something similar. Microsoft is placing themselves into the midst of consumer hatred, so one can only hope Windows 8 does flop. Unfortunately I worry that it'll still do decently

Maes said:As if anything released after DX9 managed to become relevant to game development. DX9 is still king, through continuous updates spanning nearly a decade, almost like Windows XP.

Can you think of any exclusive e.g. DX 10/11 titles that you ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY can't enjoy unless you have Windows Vista/7? Or any developers that would take that gamble because they simply cannot live without DX10 features? The broken deliberately-locked Vista-only version of Halo doesn't count ;-)

Not to say there aren't some fantastic-looking DX9 games, but whenever the current generation of consoles stops throttling things (or developers stop pandering to the console market completely and release a game built around the PC again which redefines "good graphics"), DX9 will be a thing of the past. There's already plenty of games which can take advantage of running on Vista/Win7, even if the difference isn't exactly night and day.

It's not about what DX10/11/whatever do, it's about what they can do. Making a DirectX revision exclusive to your shitty version of Windows is a lousy move, even if it's not catastrophic to current trends.

188DarkRevived said:I'm just gonna stick with WindowsXP and Office2003, thank you. I don't understand the point of any of the newer versions.
People should just build mods for preserving ancient software.

Well there's ReactOS, but it's very, very alpha (according to its website - I never actually tried it).

And you could always install some Linux distro and run your old software with Wine.

Meh, this is pretty much irrelevant. It's been only very recently that we have seen third party DX 10-only titles, and DX 10 was released in 2006. So with that hindsight, you could say that the DX 11.1 exclusivity is going to hurt users of older Windowses sometime in 2018.

By that time, most people have already upgraded for a reason or an other and no one cares anymore.

Other possible scenarios:
Win8 will be a flop, forcing MS to release Win9 to do what Win7 did to Vista within two years. Everyone will eventually move on to Win9 and forget about the DX 11.1 exclusivity

Or, Win8 will be a flop, but MS decides to stick to it. They'll eventually either remove the DX exclusivity to make their older, more popular OSs viable for gaming or they'll give up on gamers and we'll move on to other pastures.

Edit:
re Win8=bad: Have you actually used it? I use it daily at work, and while the lack of a start menu is still jarring, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the OS itself. It's certainly no Vista or ME.

I have Windows 8 and it's not so bad. It's basically Windows 7 with a full screen simplified Start menu. And I only use that as a search function, so the full screen simplification doesn't bother me. You do NOT need to use Metro apps to do anything. They're good just for touchscreens (I wonder if MS has any market share over Android and iOS though); fortunately they're not required. All the real work is done on the Desktop (which isn't disrupted). You only work with Windows Store apps if you fancy to.

Of course, upgrading to Windows 8 still means shelling out money, so I understand your concerns. But it's not a shitty, weaker Windows. It doesn't add many new productivity features either. I like it more than 7 just because they got rid of the Aero Glass and Classic themes, thank God.

If the new laptop you bought comes with Windows 8, you don't need to despair. On the other hand, you probably don't need to upgrade if you have 7.

Jodwin said:re Win8=bad: Have you actually used it? I use it daily at work, and while the lack of a start menu is still jarring, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the OS itself. It's certainly no Vista or ME.

I was primarily citing popular opinion. I haven't used Windows since Win2k, so I can't actually comment on quality.

Mr. Freeze said:This sucks. Especially since my laptop is gradually dying out, and I need a new one soon...and the Staples near my house only has Windows 8 laptops.

Think outside the box, man. I pay almost nothing for my laptops, they're always used, sometimes even free. I put whatever OS that I want to run on them. If it's XP you want, just buy a working, used one that already has it installed (so you can verify the hardware devices are all supported). There's a whole shitload of them out there right now, because a lot of people in western society are brainwashed into believing they have to upgrade all the time (not just computers, but pretty much everything they buy).

Also, some stuff you can learn to fix yourself! Sometimes it's not worth the cost though, but other times the parts are cheap enough to make it worthwhile.

Sadly, popular opinion is dumb though. A vast majority of Win8 haters are people who have seen a couple of screenshots and maybe read some articles about the start menu and then decided that it must be worst OS since the dawn of time.

That's not to say that Win8 is perfect, of course it isn't, and neither is Win7 or any other OS out there. But if someone's going to hate on Win8, they better have actually used it first and then have come up with real reasons.

Jodwin said:
Sadly, popular opinion is dumb though. A vast majority of Win8 haters are people who have seen a couple of screenshots and maybe read some articles about the start menu and then decided that it must be worst OS since the dawn of time.

That's not to say that Win8 is perfect, of course it isn't, and neither is Win7 or any other OS out there. But if someone's going to hate on Win8, they better have actually used it first and then have come up with real reasons.

I've heard and seen enough about its feature retractions, API obsoleting and deprecations, and its new bugs to know that whether or not it is "bad," it is completely unnecessary to me. Superfluous. A diversion. Completely non-utilitarian. Explain to me as a user of Windows 7 why I NEED Windows 8. Until I do, and I won't, ever, Microsoft shouldn't be fucking with my Windows 7 support.

188DarkRevived said:I'm just gonna stick with WindowsXP and Office2003, thank you. I don't understand the point of any of the newer versions.

Mostly, more RAM support.

I've used both 8 and 7, and I think the issue I have with 8 is it's so different than the previous versions in where aspects are tucked into. It's very jarring to try and get used to. I wouldn't say that makes it bad though--it feels like Windows 7 with a new HUD really.

Quasar said:Explain to me as a user of Windows 7 why I NEED Windows 8.

Like you said, you don't. Neither did a lot of people need to upgrade from XP to Vista or 7 (I'm writing this from my home desktop, which is still running XP). Rather, for most people 8 is going to be an OS that they move on to when the buy new computers, whenever that may be. I agree that for a desktop user 8 is very much an unnecessary step though. However, that still doesn't warrant all the shitfest that's been going on. A gross Internet-overreaction to something that, in the very end, will be relatively irrelevant.

As for 7's support, unless MS promised something specific and then denied it, no one's entitled for anything but a mild annoyance. Leaving customers using an old OS for a decade with support is bad business, thus they are obviously trying to not do that. If anyone's surprised about that...well, they really shouldn't be.

The only thing that worries me about Windows 8 is that it wishes that I use my Microsoft account instead of a simple username to log-in (currently I'm NOT using the MS account to log in). I'm pretty sure that at a given moment Microsoft will force me to use the MS account for logging in, so I can be at their mercy, and risk being banned and locked out of my system if I do something wrong. What do you think about this?

printz said:The only thing that worries me about Windows 8 is that it wishes that I use my Microsoft account instead of a simple username to log-in (currently I'm NOT using the MS account to log in). I'm pretty sure that at a given moment Microsoft will force me to use the MS account for logging in, so I can be at their mercy, and risk being banned and locked out of my system if I do something wrong. What do you think about this?

Uh, what if you just want to use your machine offline. As in, no (or very infrequent and unpredictable) Internet access. Are you saying you can't even login to your own box if it can't connect to microsoft.com or something?